But the scheme did not entirely fail: a man shrinks from exposing to another that infirmity of will which he might else have but a feeble motive for disguising to himself; and the delegated man, the external conscience, as it were, of Coleridge, though destined-in the final resort, if matters came to absolute rupture, and to an obstinate duel, as it were, between himself and his principal-in that extremity to give way, yet might have long protracted the struggle, before coming to that sort of dignus vindice nodus: and in fact, I know, upon absolute proof, that, before reaching that crisis, the man shewed fight ; and, faithful to his trust, and comprehending the reasons for it, he declared that if he must yield, he would "know the reason why."

Opium, therefore, subject to the explanation I have made, was certainly the original source of Coleridge's morbid feelings, of his debility, and of his remorse. His pecuniary embarrassments pressed as lightly as could well be expected upon him. I have mentioned the annuity of L.150 made to him by the two Wedgewoods. One half, I believe, could not be withdrawn, having been left by a regular testamentary bequest. But the other moiety, coming from the surviving brother, was withdrawn on the plea of commercial losses, somewhere, I think, about 1815. That would have been a heavy blow to Coleridge; and assuredly the generosity is not very conspicuous, of having ever suffered an allowance of that nature to be left to the mercy of accident. Either it ought not to have been granted in that shape-viz. as an annual allowance, giving ground for expecting its periodical recurrence-or it ought not to have been withdrawn. However, this blow was broken to Coleridge by the bounty of George IV., who placed Coleridge's name in the list of twelve to whom he granted an annuity of 100 guineas per annum. This he enjoyed so long as that Prince reigned. But at length came a heavier blow than that from Mr Wedgewood: a new King arose, who knew not Joseph. Yet surely he was not a King who could so easily resolve to turn adrift twelve men of letters, many of them most accomplished men, for the sake of appropriating a sum no larger to himself than 1200 guineas--no less to some of them than the total freight of their earthly hopes?—No matter: let the deed have been from whose hand it might, it was done; glasa it was perpetrated, as saith the Medea of Euripides; and it will be mentioned hereafter, "more than either once or twice." It fell with weight, and with effect upon the latter days of Coleridge; it took from him as much heart and hope as at his years, and with his unworldly prospects, remained for man to blight and, if it did not utterly crush him, the reason was-because for himself he had never needed much, and was now continually drawing near to that haven, in which, for himself, he would need nothing; secondly, because his children were now independent of his aid; and, finally, because in this land there are men to be found always of minds large enough to comprehend the claims of genius, and with hearts,

It can hardly be necessary to inform any reader of discernment or of much practice in composition, that the whole of this article upon Mr Coleridge, though carried through at intervals, and (as it has unexpectedly happened) with time sufficient to have made it a very careful one, has, in fact, been written in a desultory and unpremeditated style. It was originally undertaken on the sudden but profound impulse communicated to the writer's feelings, by the unexpected news of this great man's death; partly, therefore, to relieve, by expressing his own deep sentiments of reverential affection to his memory, and partly, in however imperfect a way, to meet the public feeling of interest or curiosity about a man who had long taken his place amongst the intellectual potentates of the age. Both purposes required that it should be written almost extempore: the greater part was really and unaffectedly written in that way, and under circumstances of such extreme haste, as would justify the writer in pleading the very amplest privilege of licence and indulgent construction which custom concedes to such cases. Hence it had occurred to the writer as a judicious principle, to create a sort of merit out of his own necessity; and rather to seek after the graces which belong to the epistolary form, or to other modes of composition professedly careless, than after those which grow out of preconceived biographies, which, having originally settled their plan upon a regular foundation, are able to pursue a course of orderly developement, such as his slight sketch had voluntarily renounced from the beginning. That mode of composition having been once adopted, it seemed proper to sustain it, even after delays and interruption had allowed time for throwing the narrative into a more orderly movement, and modulating, as it were, into a key of the usual solemnity. The qualis ab incepto processerit—the ordo prescribed by the first bars of the music predominated over all other considerations, and to such an extent, that he had purposed to leave the article without any regular termination or summing up-as, on the one hand, scarcely demanded by the character of a sketch so rapid and indigested, whilst, on the other, he was sensible that anything of so much pretension as a formal peroration, challenged a sort of consideration to the paper which it was the author's chief wish to disclaim. That effect, however, is sufficiently parried by the implied protest now offered; and, on other reasons, it is certainly desirable that a general glance, however cursory, should be thrown over the intellectual claims of Mr Coleridge, by one who knew him so well, and especially in a case where those very claims const:

tute the entire and sole justification of the preceding personal memoir. That which furnishes the whole moving reason for any separate notice at all, and forms its whole latent interest, ought not, in mere logic, to be left without some notice itself, though as rapidly executed as the previous biographical sketch, and, from the necessity of the subject, by many times over more imperfect.

To this task, therefore, the writer now addresses himself; and, by way of gaining greater freedom of movement, and of resuming his conversational tone, he will here again take the liberty of speaking in the first person.

If Mr Coleridge had been merely a scholarmerely a philologist-or merely a man of science -there would be no reason apparent for travelling in our survey beyond the field of his intellect, rigorously and narrowly so called. But because he was a poet, and because he was a philosopher, in a comprehensive and a most human sense, with whose functions the moral nature is so largely interwoven, I shall feel myself entitled to notice the most striking aspects of his character, (using that word in its common limited meaning,) of his disposition, and his manners, as so many reflex indications of his intellectual constitution. But let it be well understood that I design nothing elaborate, nothing comprehensive or ambitious: my purpose is merely to supply a few hints and suggestions drawn from a very hasty retrospect, by way of adding a few traits to any outline which the reader may have framed to himself, either from some personal knowledge, or from more full and lively memorials.

One character, in which Mr Coleridge most often came before the public, was that of politician. In this age of fervent partisanship, it will, therefore, naturally occur as a first question, to inquire after his party and political connections: was he Whig, Tory, or Radical? Or, under a

new classification, were his propensities Conservative or Reforming? I answer that, in any exclusive or emphatic sense, he was none of these; because, as a philosopher he was, according to circumstances, and according to the object concerned, all of these by turns. These are distinctions upon which a cloud of delusion rests. It would not be difficult to shew, that in the speculations built upon the distinction of Whig and Tory, even by as philosophic a politician as Edmund Burke, there is an oversight of the largest practical importance. But the general and partisan use of these terms superadds to this were Yudes a second which is much more flagrant. It is this: the terms Whig or Tory, used by partisans, are taken extra gradum, as expressing the ideal or extreme cases of the several creeds; whereas, in actual life, few such cases are found realized, by far the major part of those who answer to either one or the other denomination making only an approximation (differing by infinite degrees) to the ideal or abstract type. A third error there is, relating to the actual extent of the several denominations, even after every allowance made for the faintest approximations. Listen to a Whig, or to a Tory,

and you will suppose that the great bulk of society range under his banner; all, at least, who have any property at stake. Listen to a Radical, and you will suppose that all are marshalled in the same ranks with himself, unless those who have some private interest in existing abuses, or have aristocratic privileges to defend. Yet, upon going extensively into society as it is, you find that a vast majority of good citizens are of no party whatsoever, own no party designation, care for no party interest, but carry their good wishes by turns to men of every party, according to the momentary purpose they are pursuing. As to Whig and Tory, it is pretty clear that only two classes of men, both of limited extent, acknowledge these as their distinctions; first, those who make politics in some measure their profession or trade-whether by standing forward habitually in public meetings as leaders or as assistants, or by writing books and pamphlets in the same cause; secondly, those whose rank, or birth, or position in a city, or a rural district, almost pledge them to a share in the political struggles of the day, under the penalty of being held fainéans, truants, or even malignant recusants, if they should decline a warfare which often, perhaps, they do not love in secret. These classes, which, after all, are not numerous, and not entirely sincere, compose the whole extent of professing Whigs and Tories who make any approach to the standards of their two churches; and, generally speaking, these persons have succeeded to their politics and their party ties, as they have to their estates, viz. by inheritance. Not their way of thinking in politics has dictated their party connections; but these connections, traditionally bequeathed from one generation to another, have dictated their politics. With respect to the Radical or the Reformer, the case is otherwise ; for, it is certain, that in this, as in every great and enlightened nation, enjoying an intense and fervid communication of thought through the press, there is, and must be, a tendency widely diffused to the principles of sane reform-an anxiety to probe and examine all the institutions of the land by the increasing lights of the age -and a salutary determination that no acknowledged abuse shall be sheltered by prescription, or privileged by its antiquity. In saying, therefore, that his principles are spread over the length and breadth of the land, the Reformer says no more than the truth. Whig and Tory, as usually understood, express only two modes of aristocratic partisanship: and it is strange, indeed, to find people deluded by the notion that the reforming principle has any more natural connection with the first than the last. Reformer, on the other hand, to a certain extent, expresses the political creed and aspect of almost every enlightened citizen: but, then, how? Not, as the Radical would insinuate, as pledging a man to a specific set of objects, or to any visible and apparent party, having known leaders and settled modes of action. British society, in its large majority, may be fairly

denounced an inevitable "purification by fire and blood:" no trace remained of her primitive character and of that awful outbreak of popular might, which once had made France the land of hope and promise to the whole human race, and had sounded a knell to every form of oppression or abuse, no record was to be found, except in the stupendous power which cemented its martial oligarchy. Of the people, of the democracy or that it had ever for an hour been roused from its slumbers-one sole evidence remained; and that lay in the blank power of destruction, and its perfect organization, which none but a popular movement, no power short of that, could have created. The people having been unchained, and as if for the single purpose of creating a vast system of destroying energies, had then immediately recoiled within their old limits, and themselves become the earliest victim of their own stratocracy. In this way France had become an object of jealousy and alarm. It remained to see to what purpose she would apply her new energies. That was soon settled; her new-born power was wielded from the first by unprincipled and by ambitious men ; and, in 1800, it fell under the permanent control of an autocrat, whose unity of purpose, and iron will, left no room for any hope of change.

Under these circumstances, under these prospects, coupled with this retrospect, what became the duty of all foreign politicians? of the English above all, as natural leaders in any hopeful scheme of resistance? The question can scarcely be put with decency. Time and season, place or considerations of party, all alike vanished before an elementary duty to the human race, which much transcended any duty of exclusive patriotism. Plant it, however, on that narrower basis, and the answer would have been the same for all centuries, and for every land under a corres ponding state of circumstances. Of Napoleon's real purposes there cannot now be any reasonable doubt. His confessions-and, in particular, his indirect revelations at St Helena-have long since removed all demurs or scruples of scepticism. For England, therefore, as in relation to a man bent upon her ruin, all distinctions of party were annihilated-Whig and Tory were merged and swallowed up in the transcendant duties of patriots-Englishmen-lovers of liberty. Tories, as Tories, had here no peculiar or separate duties-none which belonged to their separate creed in politics. Their duties were paramount; and their partisanship had here no application was perfectly indifferent, and spoke neither this way or that. In one respect only they had peculiar duties, and a peculiar responsibility; peculiar, however, not by any difference of quality, but in its supreme degree; the same duties which belonged to all, belonged to them by a heavier responsibility. And how, or why? Not as Tories had they, or could they have any functions at all applying to this occasion; it was as being then the ministerial party, as the party accidentally in power at the particular crisis in that character it was that they had

any separate or higher degree of responsibility; otherwise, and as to the kind of their duty apart from this degree, the Tories stood in the same circumstances as men of all other parties. To the Tories, however, as accidentally in possession of the supreme power, and wielding the national forces at that time, and directing their application-to them it was that the honour belonged of making a beginning: on them had devolved the privilege of opening and authorizing the dread crusade. How, and in what spirit they acquitted themselves of that most enviable task-enviable for its sanctityfearful for the difficulty of its adequate fulfilment-how they persevered-and whether at any crisis, the direst and most ominous to the righteous cause, they faltered or gave sign of retreating-history will tell-history has already told. To the Whigs belonged the duty of seconding their old antagonists: and no wise man could have doubted, that, in a case of transcendant patriotism, where none of those principles could possibly apply by which the two parties were divided and distinguished, the Whigs would be anxious to shew that, for the interests of their common country, they could cheerfully lay aside all those party distinctions, and forget those feuds which now had no pertinence or meaning. Simply as Whigs, had they stood in no other relation, they probably would have done so. Unfortunately, however, for their own good name and popularity in after times, they were divided from the other party, not merely as Whigs opposed to Tories, but also upon another and a more mortifying distinction, which was not, like the first, a mere inert question of speculation or theory, but involved a vast practical difference of honours and emoluments: -they were divided, I say, on another and more vexatious principle, as the Outs opposed to the Ins. Simply as Whigs, they might have coalesced with the Tories quoad hoc, and merely for this one purpose. But as men out of power, they could not coalesce with those who were in. They constituted "his Majesty's Opposition;" and, in a fatal hour, they determined that it was fitting to carry on their general scheme of hos. tility even into this sacred and privileged ground. That resolution once taken, they found it necessary to pursue it with zeal. The case itself was too weighty and too interesting to allow of any moderate tone for the abetters or opposers. Passion and personal bitterness soon animated the contest: violent and rash predictions were hazarded-prophecies of utter ruin and of captivity for our whole army were solemnly delivered: and it soon became evident, as indeed mere human infirmity made it beforehand but too probable, that where so much personal credit was at stake upon the side of our own national dishonour, the wishes of the prophet had been pledged to the same result as the credit of his political sagacity. Many were the melancholy illustrations of the same general case. Men were seen fighting against the evidences of some great British victory with all the bitterness

and fierce incredulity which usually meet the first rumours of some private calamity: that was in effect the aspect in their eyes of each national triumph in its turn. Their position, connected with the unfortunate election made by the Whig leaders of their tone from the very opening of the contest, gave the character of a calamity for them and for their party, to that which to every other heart in Britain was the noblest of triumphs in the noblest of causes; and, as a party, the Whigs mourned for years over those events which quickened the pulses of pleasure and sacred exultation in every other heart. God forbid that all Whigs should have felt in this unnatural way! I speak only of the tone set by the Parliamentary leaders. The few who were in Parlia ment, and exposed to daily taunts from the just exultation of their irritated opponents, had their natural feelings poisoned and envenomed. The many who were out of Parliament, and not personally interested in this warfare of the Houses, were left open to natural influences of patriotic pride, and to the contagion of public sympathy and these, though Whigs, felt as became them.

These are things too unnatural to be easily believed; or, in a land where the force of partisanship is less, to be easily understood. Being true, however, they ought not to be forgotten: and at present it is almost necessary that they should be stated for the justification of Coleridge. Too much has been written upon this part of his life, and too many reproaches thrown out upon his levity or his want of principle in his supposed sacrifice of his early political connections, to make it possible for any reverencer of Coleridge's memory to pass over the case without a full explanation. That explanation is involved in the strange and scandalous conduct of the Parliamentary Whigs. Coleridge passed over to the Tories only in that sense in which all patriots did so at that time, and in relation to our great foreign interest-viz. by refusing to accompany the Whigs in their almos perfidious demeanour towards Napoleon Bonaparte. Anti-ministerial they affect to style their policy, but in the most eminent sense it was anti-national. It was thus far-viz. exclusively, or almost exclusively, in relation to our great feud with Napoleon-that Coleridge adhered to the Tories. But because this feud was so capital and so earth-shaking a quarrel, that it occupied all hearts and all the councils of Christendom, suffering no other question almost to live in its neighbourhood, hence it happened that he who acceded to the Tories in this one chapter of their policy, was regarded as an ally in the most general sense. Domestic politics were then, in fact, forgotten; no question, in any proper sense a Tory one, ever arose in that era; or, if it had, the public attention would not have settled upon it; and it would speedily have been dismissed.

Hence I deduce as a possibility, and, from my knowledge of Coleridge, I deduce it as a fact, that his adhesion to the Tories was bounded by his approbation of their foreign policy; and even

of that rarely in its executive details, rarely even in its military plans, (for these he assailed with more keenness of criticism than to me the case seemed to justify,) but solely in its animating principle-its moving and sustaining force, viz. the doctrine and entire faith that Napoleon Bonaparte ought to be resisted, was not a proper object of diplomacy or negociation, and could be resisted hopefully and triumphantly. Thus far he went along with the Tories: in all else he belonged quite as much to other parties-so far as he belonged to any. And that he did not follow any bias of private interest in connecting himself with Tories, or rather in allowing Tories to connect themselves with him, appears (rather more indeed than it ought to have appeared) on the very surface of his life. From Tory munificence he drew nothing at all, unless it should be imputed to his Tory connections that George IV. selected him for one of his academicians. But this slight mark of royal favour he owed, I believe, to other considerations; and I have reason to think that his way of treating political questions, so wide of dogmatism, and laying open so vast a field to scepticism that might else have gone unregarded, must have been held as evidence of too latitudinarian a creed to justify a title to Toryism. And, upon the whole, I am of opinion, that few events of Mr Coleridge's life were better calculated to place his disinterested pursuit of truth in a luminous aspect. In fact, his carelessness of all worldly interests was too notorious to leave him open to suspicions of that nature: nor was this carelessness kept within such limits as to be altogether meritorious. There is no doubt that his indolence concurred, in some degree, to that line of conduct and to that political reserve which would, at all events, have been pursued, in a degree beyond what honour the severest, or delicacy the most nervous, could have enjoined. It is a singular anecdote, after all, to report of Coleridge, who incurred the reproach of having ratted solely by his inability to follow the friends of his early days into what his heart regarded as a monstrous and signal breach of patriotism, that in any eminent sense he was not a patriot. His understanding in this, as in many instances, was too active, too restless, for any abiding feelings to lay hold of him, unless when they coincided with some palpable command of nature. Parental love, for instance, was too holy a thing to be submitted for an instant to any scrutiny or any jealousy of his hair-splitting understanding. But it must be something as sacred and as profound as that which with Coleridge could long support the endless attrition of his too active intellect. this instance, he had the same defect, derived in part from the same cause, as a contemporary, one of the idols of the day, more celebrated, and more widely celebrated, than Coleridge, but far his inferior in power and compass of intellect. I speak of Goethe: he also was defective, and defective under far stronger provocations and excitement, in patriotic feeling. He cared little for Weimar—and less for Germany. And he

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